Not Just a Phase - A Dad's Story

It has been an experience to watch my son grow into a man. What started out as a sad adolescent has emerged into a productive member of society.

His drug use started out with marijuana and slowly, but surely moved into sedatives and alcohol. There were countless nights waiting for him to come home safely, millions of excuses of why he was late to curfew and tons of denial from me. I refused to admit he was an alcoholic and drug addict, rather thought this as a phase of adolescence. The incidents got worse and the interval between incidents became shorter. It became like a powder keg waiting to explode. I thought a change of school environments would help the situation, but all it did was worsen his grades. A change of environment does not work for long. I thought changing of his friends would do the trick, so I began to manage his relationships, which built up resentments and this approach did not work.

I tried to reason, talk, cajole, and bribe him, but to no avail. The bottom line is that you cannot reason with someone deep into their addiction and disease. I forgot that this was a disease, but I was dealing with this as a social issue.

He went to a local health facility for 3 days and the advice was for him to stay longer. We went against this advice. Two weeks later we asked him to leave our house after the situation had not improved, but actually had gotten worse. He came back after a week and things seemed to improve for a week or two, but the disease took hold once again, and it was off to another treatment facility. This time for the full stay and out-patient treatment. Our dilemma was where to continue his treatment after hospitalization.

We were told of a program called Cornerstone, so off we went tot gather information. It seemed like a decent program on the outside via the website, and we were desperate for a program where recovery of adolescents was the primary purpose.

The counselors seemed nice enough and very caring about the kids, but I was not prepared for the parent involvement that was suggested, or the seeming lack of parent involvement in the kids. This was an alternative peer group that had the kids hold each other accountable. What a concept! This meant that I had help. I also had to relearn my parenting skills and hold my teen accountable, which was what my teen had always wanted…structure and routine.

I had to put as much work into the program as my teen did. I had to work my own program and let my teen work his program. The result was that we both got to grow together. Today my son has been sober for over 19 months and our relationship has never been better. The Cornerstone program gave us hope that there was a better way of life for us as a family. Regardless of the future, our family has a set of tools to aid us in our lifelong recovery. It is difficult to try and revert back to the old way when you have tasted the new and better way.

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